Once upon a time, when chess was slowly making its way west from India to Europe, the rules were somewhat different. One of the differences was that castling was not permitted--or rather, it's better to say that no one had yet dreamt up the idea of castling. That innovation was one of many ways the game was changed to speed up the action. But what if we got rid of it? Vladimir Kramnik has been proposing various chess variants over the last few years, and he'll put it to the test against the greatest player from the land where chess (probably) started (India) - his great rival Viswanathan Anand.
They'll play a four-game match in Dortmund starting July 14; let's hope it's a good one. More here. (HT: Tyler Cowen)